


turn the lights on honey (I'm surrendering tonight)

by pumpkin130



Series: there's things I want to say to you, but I'll just let you live [1]
Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: Angst, F/F, I just have a lot of feelings about them okay, Internalized Homophobia, LIKE A LOT OF ANGST, Shelby POV, YES I basically stole the last line from perks of being a wallflower, and I just want to give them all a hug, no i have no regrets, religious trauma, this is not a happy story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28543233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkin130/pseuds/pumpkin130
Summary: You have grown to accept that whatever the two of you had was simply meant to exist in that one specific space at that one specific time. You take comfort in knowing that — in that moment — you are sickeningly infinite.Or; the one where they all try to go back to their lives and some traumas are just too deep to heal.
Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Series: there's things I want to say to you, but I'll just let you live [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2091093
Comments: 12
Kudos: 144





	turn the lights on honey (I'm surrendering tonight)

The room felt fake, like it wasn’t yours anymore. Like after having spent months laying on a beach, surrounded by girls that had each carved themselves onto your soul, you were no longer deserving of the large bed and the chandelier you picked out with your mom when you were five years old. 

“I’ve bet you’ve got one of those mega beds with like, 50 pillows.”

The memory hits you like a slap in the face, and just like that, she’s here. Laying on your bed, rummaging through your drawers, trying on all your stupid crowns while softly teasing you about them. 

You can’t escape her: can’t escape her laugh, her smile, her touch. 

You are doing it for her own good. One last sacrifice to your fallen God, on final prayer of protection. You are doing it for her own good, yet you can’t quite seem to fully let her go, your selfishness refusing to abandon the memory of her entirely. 

The entire situation is typical, the island ruining yet another piece of your once perfectly preserved persona. The hair that had long been shaved off and was now growing back in desperate clumps. The teeth, broken and lying somewhere in the middle of the jungle. Your walls, having rattled at the precipice of something and then been reinforced after what happened to Becca, were shattered: blown to dust, existing in a faint layer all over you.

And while they had condemned you, they also kept you safe. Kept you safe from girls with deep brown eyes that looked at you like it _meant_ something. 

But they were broken, and for the second time you were forced to face the idea that perhaps they had been built to protect others from _you._

* * *

It was as if someone had taken two pieces of clay, shoved them against each other, knees knocking, hands grasping, lips meeting, hearts molding together until you couldn't tell where one stopped and the other began. And then just as quickly as they were forced into one another, they were ripped apart again. Sent off to opposite ends of the country with parts that didn’t belong to them and hearts that they didn’t know how to handle.

You aren’t friends. The word feels too small, too simple to describe what had transpired between you. 

But in love? You aren’t even sure if you are capable of that. You had spent so long trying to love everyone, giving it away for free, not requiring payment from others. Instead you sacrificed pieces of yourself, and while you would give her all you have left, would steal back whatever love you can, ripping it from the hands of others, she deserves more than you could ever give her. 

She deserves more than that, you know, someone who can love her fully and without fear. She deserves more than you, with your ugliness on view for all to see, other’s prejudices and your own desires battling for dominance in your soul.

So you let her go, cutting yourself away from her aside from one single tether. You press the knife into yourself, cutting away at your edges, leaving her whole while you are bleeding.

You let her take some of you with her, thinking its fair as there is part of her you aren't willing to give back quite yet.

You keep the secrets that she gave you, the secrets that were first spit out as fiery confessions and later presented softly, whispered against your lips while you were tangled up together. You keep them pressed against your heart, hold onto them with broken fingers, using the last of your strength to preserve your hold. They are all you have left, really, and you won’t, _can’t_ abandon them, need to keep them safe until they can be returned to their rightful owner. 

You know she would fill you up, if you let her. Would sacrifice herself at your altar, give up herself to heal you. 

You have lived your whole life selfish. You won’t allow yourself to consume her too, to snuff out yet _another_ of God’s creatures. 

If you thought you were capable of love, you would say it is because you love her too much. 

But you don’t think that you are, so you say nothing.

* * *

You go to Dottie’s every day, and the two of you sit in silence with music turned up in an effort to combat the silence that six — seven? — voices used to occupy.

The island had taken care of Jeanette while you were there. Not taken care of, obviously, but you assume the elements supplied the noise she would have made had she survived longer than those first few hours. 

And even though you know now, know she was one of them, you can’t bring yourself to hate her. You remember what her eyes looked like as she buried her apologies into Leah’ shoulder, and you think that even though she was the only one who knew what she was walking into, she faced the biggest betrayal of all. 

You forgave Nora. You forgive Linh — you learned her name in the bunker, Gretchen spitting it at Leah like it was somehow her fault.

“It seems kind of childish to hold grudges around here, don’t you think?”

You turn up the music, and remind yourself not to be selfish.

* * *

It was the silence that had driven you to insanity in the bunker. No Martha laughing, no Nora and Rachel bickering, none of Dot’s firm resistance or Leah’s desperate pleas. Fatin's constant commentary had gone silent. No impossibly deep voice, crackling somewhere deep inside you, smiling about “something that could be good”. 

It was your own thoughts, consuming you, eating you from the inside, whispers of God and sin and Toni, Toni, Toni.

You needed to protect her. 

You're sure she doesn't see it that way. 

* * *

You talk to Martha, even though your conversations feel fake, the girl you both love hanging between you. Not necessarily asking to pick sides, but rather screaming not to forget.

As if you could forget her. That strong, screaming girl that hurtled herself through your carefully constructed walls, pulling apart the bricks with an impossibly soft touch. She had tied you to her, using quick, secure stitches, even before you were able to identify that the fire burning between you _wasn’t_ , in fact, hate:

“You’ve got a lot of people here thinking you’re all rainbows and unicorn shit, but _I see you_.”

“You’re _free_ here, Shelby, and if you’re not taking advantage of that, I don’t know what the fuck to tell you.”

“You sure?”

“Whatever you want to say, I’ll cosign.”

“It’s ‘cause I trust you.”

_“I don’t think I’ve got it in me to get that scared about something that could be good.”_

Something good.

Something good.

Something good.

You should have warned her. Everything good you touch crumbles in your hands.

* * *

You called her, once. It was in the early weeks of your return home, and you were feeling unthinkably brave. The truth had yet to come out; your father hadn’t learned who she was to you. 

You allowed yourself to be selfish for a moment, allowed yourself to be convinced that she would be safe, that maybe, just maybe, it could all work out. 

It was a quick conversation, not even five minutes, but your heart still jumped at every syllable that came out of her mouth, her gravelly voice upsetting your center, that one final tether you allowed growing stronger by the second. 

You belong to her, you realize at that moment. You belong to all of them, but you belong to her the most. She had wormed her way in, rescuing you from your self-imposed purgatory. It was as though you yourself were nailed to the cross, and she pulled you down, carefully moved you far, far away, healing the wounds left by the crown of thorns. She had suffered at your hands, yet she still rescued you. She had saved you. 

You don’t know what you believe in anymore. You are trying to reconcile the God that brought you her with the one that would have had you burned at the stake.

You do know, though, that Toni could do anything she set her mind to. And you have more faith in that than you ever had in the hate you spent your life listening to your father spew.

You can’t quite seem to shake her, is all. 

You tell her so, in an ill-advised moment of weakness. 

“I belong to you, you know. I’ll always belong to you.”

The line goes silent, her breathing heavy on the other end. 

“I don’t know what you want from me, Shelby.” For a single, horrible moment, you are back on that godforsaken island. Staring down at her, listening to her scream that she doesn’t matter.

She sounds even more broken, now.

The line goes dead, and you realize what a terrible, horrible mistake you have made.

* * *

You were lying to yourself. The selfishness long thought conquered had manifested into something new, something uglier.

You had convinced yourself that you had saved her, that you had managed to only harm yourself.

You realize now, that she had opened you up, had crawled inside, had made herself at home. And you clawed her out, shoved has aside like she was _nothing_ , like so many had before.

What a fool you were. To think you left yourself bleeding, while you were killing her.

You think, blindly, of the story of Adam and Eve. The serpent approaching the young woman, damning her, ruining her. 

You are the devil that you spent your childhood so afraid of. You are _sin_ : it seeps out of your pores, poisoning everything you touch.

* * *

They all must think you stupid. To think you would not see through their plan, most likely dictated in a group chat that Fatin had undoubtedly entitled something horribly nostalgic and adorned with emojis. 

The mentions of her were not meant to stand out. Rather, they are hidden in plain sight, in between updates about Fatin and Leah’s adventures in LA and Rachel’s vaguely concerning physical therapy routine. You are fairly confident if you still had your crutches the older girl would have tried to turn your individual recoveries into some sort of competition. 

Anyway, no matter the intention, Toni still stands out starkly, existing separate from the other pieces. It is empty, where she should be, because even though you know she is okay, know she is safe, she isn’t here. 

You hear from Martha that they bought a new, bigger house on the reservation using some of the settlement money, with connecting rooms and enough space for Martha’s family and Toni’s ghosts.

It is Nora who tells you she is back on the basketball team, and Rachel who yells from the same room that she reminds her daily not to fuck it all up again. 

You think it is probably supposed to be some sort of reassurance. That they are all looking after her. That they are keeping her safe.

You think it is probably you who should be getting that reminder. You break everything you get close to.

You are almost prepared then, when the picture appears in the groupchat of the eight of you. Toni, slouching on the bleachers, wearing a jacket with the word “CAPTAIN” proudly stitched onto it in bold letters. You _feel_ your heart stop as you look at the girl sitting next to her, small smile playing at her lips, eyes stark against the heavy black eyeliner. 

You have a theory about what the existence of this girl so close to Toni means.

She isn’t even yours, not anymore, maybe never, but your heart breaks just the same as your phone chimes brightly at the text from Martha confirming that the other girl is Regan, and the chat goes silent. 

The messages of condolence roll in slowly after that. Dot appears at your front door, Fatin leaves five voicemails asking for your advice on what to wear out that night, and even Rachel texts you a bizarre motivational quote about running that can be interpreted in about one way.

Radio silence from the one person you want to talk to, but you set her free, and are not cruel enough to drag her back to you. You refuse to break her wings again, to trap her against you, and you feel yourself falling away from her, the tether growing weaker every day that goes by.

* * *

"I'm letting you go," you think. And yet, the tether remains.

* * *

The truth comes out, eventually. Sitting in your fathers study, staring down a question you don’t know how to answer.

“What _exactly_ happened on that island?”

It was a question you heard before, but it knocks you off balance all the same. The cadence is different, and it hits you, what your parents are really asking. 

Because they can get over being stranded on an island, can get over being held in a bunker, can get over the nervous breakdown, but have the gall to abandon you the minute they learn the truth?

“You sent me there!” you scream into the abyss, as they pray for guidance, pray to save your mortal soul.

Even though they were the ones that sent you into hell because you had kissed a girl with impossibly blue eyes that still haunted your dreams.

Yet they pray, pray for your salvation from a hell they built themselves, pray for the return of the girl with a bright smile and broken eyes.

And they try. 

_God_ they try.

* * *

The minute your hair is long enough for extensions you are plopped into a salon chair, the weight of the long blonde locks slowing you down, making you complacent. 

“A tool to enslave the masses” you hear her whisper to you, a laugh rumbling in her throat. 

"I’m letting you go," you think. And yet, the tether remains.

* * *

What had once been your biggest insecurity is now nothing but “a bad memory”. Your mothers words, not your own.

You are staring at your swollen face, poking at the new veneers. It hurts, but you think you probably deserve it. You poke again.

You can’t help but remember how you used to make her laugh, how you would pop your teeth out and leave them around camp.

They had fallen somewhere, when you were escaping the bunker, and she had just smiled at you, looked at you as if nothing had changed.

Looked at you as if you were beautiful.

No memories of her could be bad. Not even the ones that hurt. 

"I’m letting you go," you think. And yet, the tether remains.

* * *

You remember how she would roll her bottom lip under her teeth, looking at you with a hungry glint in her eyes.

You remember the first time you saw her execute the move, how it made you wonder what it would feel like to have that lip trapped between your own teeth.

You had learned, and it became another secret, tucked away inside of your heart, hidden where no one could take it, refusing to surrender it no matter how far anyone tried to invade. 

You launch an attack against yourself, digging, digging, digging. Thrashing your insides to pieces, you retrieve the memory. You place it under the lychee tree, add it to the ever growing pile.

"I’m letting you go," you think. And yet, the tether remains.

* * *

You go back to school, Dottie standing proudly at your side, even though she had previously declared she would “never go back to that hellhole”. 

You ignore the stares, ignore Andrew when he tries to talk to you, ignore the teachers and their endless questions.

You feel like you are sleepwalking, dragging yourself through the molasses your Grandpappy used to make. 

She is everywhere. Rolling her eyes at you over your textbook in math class, poking you with a pencil in English, winking at you before she shoots a basket in the gym.

You only make it half a day before you have to go home, citing a raging headache and something about PTSD.

Dot, bless her, doesn’t mention it. Instead, she demands the two of you take a selfie to “commemorate our return to normalcy,” and pointedly ignores whatever had flashed across your face the minute you took note of the brunette shooting hoops.

She sends the picture in your “Unsinkables” group chat, and Fatin responds almost immediately with a waterfall of heart-eye emojis. Rachel sends a single yellow heart, and Nora a hugging gif. Leah rewards you with a thumbs-up selfie of her own, Fatin jumping in the background. Martha sends a five minute video, talking about how proud of you both she is, how much she misses everyone, and ending with a quick introduction to her bunny. 

You hide your phone underneath your sink and try to forget that she didn’t respond. 

"I’m letting you go," you think. And yet, the tether remains.

* * *

“She says hi, and that she’s proud of you,” Dot informs you in the car the next morning. 

You don’t even make it to second period before you dissolve, screaming into your hands in the bathroom. 

You walk home, pointedly ignoring your buzzing phone and shattered heart. 

"I’m letting you go," you think. And yet, the tether remains.

* * *

Your parents start talking to you again, asking about your day.

They all start to blend together, as you somehow settle back into the monotony that is highschool. 

You don’t rejoin any of your old clubs, and no one even whispers the word pageants around you.

The only person you talk to is Dot, but you feel her words going through you. Like leaves in the wind, they settle momentarily, only to be picked up and whisked away again. 

You start dreaming about the island. Dreaming about the crashing of the ocean, the smell of the dirt, a warmth appearing next to you.

You get a prescription for the strongest sleeping drug you can, and allow yourself to succumb to a soundless darkness every night. 

"I’m letting you go," you think. And yet, the tether remains.

* * *

The year anniversary is this looming thing. You retreat into yourself, refusing to attend school the whole week before.

It falls on a Sunday.

You are watching the sunrise when it hits you. A single word, washing over you.

_Enough._

You know what you need to do. You feel silly that it never occurred to you before.

* * *

It’s a last resort, you know that. Yet here you are, on your knees, _begging_.

You have never begged before. You were taught to ask politely, to apply yourself before coming to Him. 

God was never taught to be a last resort. He saves those who save themselves. 

You were taught to work for His love, to work for His grace. 

God only gave you what you could take.

“I can’t take this,” you sob, hands clasped, begging for deliverance. “I need to let her _go_ . I need you to _help me_.” The words come out strangled, ripped from your throat. 

You can _see_ the tether in front of you. You are prepared to do it, to cut it, to release those pieces of her that you have refused to give up, to lay them at His feet as some sort of sacrifice. 

He can take them, He can protect them, He can give them back to her. You don’t care.

You’re just trying to keep her _safe_ , to protect her from your father, his words spewing out like fire, burning anything and anyone is his plea for salvation. 

To protect her from _you_ , from your empty heart and serpent tongue, from the destruction that follows you anywhere you go.

“I need her to be _safe_ ,” you beg, hands shaking, eyes burning. “Please, I just need her to be _safe_.”

And you _feel_ it, the tether snapping. A blinding strike to your whole body, all the pieces and moments and memories, slipping away from you. You feel her disappearing, you feel your hold on those protected, extraordinary moments dropping. You watch as she walks away, leaving you with one final, blinding smile. 

* * *

You have grown to accept that whatever the two of you had was simply meant to exist in that one specific space at that one specific time. You take comfort in knowing that — in that moment — you are sickeningly infinite.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hate me. I promise I'll give them their happy ending eventually.
> 
> Title from Rachel Platten's "Collide"


End file.
